Late notice I know (you might try apologising for your tardiness. 🙂 Ed.), but the Bristol & Bath LUG has this morning had details of the above event. To quote the event’s home page: The Linux & Open Source Expo 2011 is the UK’s only dedicated Linux & Open Source conference and exhibition. There is […]
Today the BBC reports that Race Online 2012, the organisation that aims to reach out to the 9.2 million adults in the UK who are currently offline, will be offering low-cost computers as part of a government scheme to encourage people in the UK to get online for the first time. Prices will start at […]
The Government’s £7 mn. Digital Challenge, launched in 2007, is over but, according to Connecting Bristol, ‘digital’ has more to offer Bristol than ever before. Bristol City Council, the Watershed, Knowle West Media Centre and local digital agency Nameless are sending an open invitation to you to an open meeting at 2.00 pm on Monday, […]
To some people network neutrality may seem an esoteric subject, but it’s absolutely vital for the way modern information technology functions. Last Wednesday, Government minister Ed Vaizey told the FT World Telecoms Conference that ISPs could soon be allowed to drop net neutrality and prioritise content providers prepared to pay to ensure a better quality […]
News reaches the lab that the Digital Challenge, set up nationwide some three years ago to promote digital inclusion, has come to an end. One spin-off of the Digital Challenge was the formation of the DC10plus network, which was formed 3 years ago by the 10 Digital Challenge finalists (of which the city of Bristol […]
Our friend Alan Lord reminds us that this coming Sunday the date will be 10/10/10. For those that know their binary, you’ll all realise without being prompted that 101010 is 42 in old money, so the day has been declared 42 Day in honour of the late Douglas Adams, author of some rather interesting sci-fi. […]
It’s hard to make out what’s going on with Ubuntu in the increasingly schizophrenic world of Dell, one of the UK’s/world’s largest suppliers of computer equipment. In June the specialist IT press was buzzing with an announcement from Dell that ‘Ubuntu is more secure than Windows’, whilst praising its ‘fast boot-up speeds and elegant design’, […]
Last week we write about the Ubuntu in Business event being organised in London on 13th July (news passim). News has just arrived via the blog of Canonical, the commercial sponsors of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, that more places have just been made available for the event. According to Canonical’s blog post: Canonical and […]
Following on from the release of government data earlier this week (news passim), comes an announcement that Young Rewired State will be taking place again this year from 2nd to 6th August at various places around the country. Young Rewired State is a hack week for young developers across the UK to go and build […]
The passing into law of the controversial Digital Economy Act 2010 in the dying days of the last Labour Government focussed plenty of attention on peer-to-peer software (P2P), such as Ktorrent, which is built for the Linux KDE desktop. Indeed as torrent software can be used to download material that infringes copyright (such as illegal […]
Today is the last day to sign up for BarnCamp 2010, which will be staged in the beautiful Wye Valley from 11th to 13th June 2010, courtesy of Hacktionlab, a regular convergence space where activists interested and/or working in the areas of alternative media, renewable energy, online video distribution, free software or any other form […]
On 19th and 20th June this year, Bletchley Park, former home of Blighty’s World War 2 code breakers (when it was known as Station X. Ed.) and now the home of the National Museum of Computing, will be hosting Britain’s first ever Vintage Computer Festival (VCF). The event is being billed as a unique gathering […]
My inbox today contained the an appeal from 38degrees, who have been helping fight the Government’s Digital Economy Bill. The Bill would present a major threat to the survival of open public wifi services (such as provided by Bristol Wireless and many other small outfits and operators). In addition, it introduces draconian copyright protection/infringement measures […]
Regular readers will be aware that Bristol Wireless wrote during September to the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer (news passim) and sent them each an Ubuntu live CD (so they could do half of Whitehall each? Ed. 😀 ). We’ve now had a reply (sort of. Ed.) from Tim Bett, Director, Commercial Delivery, […]
It cannot have escaped the notice of anyone in the United Kingdom that, after having slipped our profligate banks billions of pounds to prop them up, the public coffers are rather empty and that consequently central government is looking around for ‘efficiency savings’ and even the Prime Minister has been forced to say the ‘c’ […]
Every couple of years or so, just like the occasional omnibuses rumoured (and in some circles believed. Ed.) to provide a service to the travelling public, trundles up a story about wi-fi being implemented on public transport services. The last one of these that your correspondent can recall off the top of his head involved […]
Are you young (aged 15-18) and good with IT? In London next weekend? Well, you could be interested in the Young Rewired State weekend being organised then by Rewired State (byline: Geeks Meet Government. Ed.). Young Rewired State is a weekend event emulating the success of ReWired State’s National Hack the Government Day, but this […]
About a week ago I wrote a piece (news passim) when the forward crew for Hacktionlab were about to depart to site, since when a discreet silence has been maintained. A partial excuse for such taciturnity was your scribe’s duties on the woodpile for the event – hard physical graft for someone used to tickling […]
vnunet.com reports that almost 2 years after the WEEE disposal rules came into force, the UK is still lagging behind the rest of Western Europe in recycling electrical goods. Research by Dell found that 13 per cent of UK consumers do not recycle electrical goods at all – more than four times the figure in […]
Your scribe discovered yesterday that today has been designated Ada Lovelace Day by Pledgebank and is intended to promote the role of women in technology. The Pledgebank pledge for Ada Lovelace Day is: “I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 […]